So, you've contradicted yourself, right there. There's no "imaginary loss" at all. There's a current flowing around as the energy is transferred between the inductance and the capacitance, and that current dissipates energy through the resistance of the infrastructure. It heats the wires all right.

Your sources are hilarious. Here's a representative sentence:

Reads like something from the 1950s.

You're way off on that. Where did you get the 50% figure from? Your source seems to indicate that 90% is an appropriate figure for lead-acid chemistry.

That's still better than 30% for a typical ICE, but worse when you combine the 35% efficiency of a coal-fired powerplant with transmission line losses and 60% efficiency of the car itself. That said, we've got way more coal than oil.

So, we agree, then. Intelligence is about a bit more than reading newspapers and listening to the news - the game of chinese whispers you allude to.

Again - for the most part, you don't need to be physically present anywhere to get this stuff. Sure freely available sources, including the demeanor of the public, must be taken into account, but this is but a part of what intelligence work is about. Never mind that you don't really want the foreign governments to have a list of your assets, and sending them abroad as diplomats is like putting a big searchlight on their back. Their whereabouts will be duly noticed wherever they happen to go.

Why the heck even bother going anywhere? You can get all the papers you want shipped anywhere you want in the world, and you could - for many decades, probably closer to a 100 years in case of some newspapers. Never mind that almost any worthwhile paper can be had online these days.

Intelligence isn't about diplomats sitting around reading newspapers.

LOLWUT?! A bounced check doesn't equal check fraud. I have a separate checking account just to receive PayPal funds. I keep no balance there. One fine day by mistake I've paid for a bunch of things via PayPal without switching the payment method to the credit card (each and every time). PayPal submits the ACH transaction twice before charging your alternate payment method (credit card). The bank account ended up with hundreds in negative balance from all the fees ($35 per each try, and it was a dozen PayPal payments). It took a while to untangle. I also promptly got listed in one of those "persona non grata" databases in spite of having excellent credit scores and in spite of all the fees having been forgiven by the bank (after lots of hassle). So, I'm in a situation where my checks are sometimes rejected in spite of having excellent credit and sufficient funds, and I can't open a checking account without providing a lot of documentation first. I have never not paid a bill on time in my life, BTW.

Don't ask me, I only live here, not set policy.

Well said.

That works only if you have no significant federal credits. Anyone with a mortgage, and especially with a mortgage credit certificate, is screwed, then, because the state-federal equivalency breaks down and you are forced to either overpay federal or underpay state. You can of course send estimated payments to the state so as not to underpay them, but that's extra paperwork that shouldn't be necessary if the idiots in charge just were bright enough to put to fields on W-4 instead of just one.

Now if only the federal taxes were calculated exactly like the state taxes, so that the appropriate federal exemption count was exactly applicable to your state taxes. Hmm.

Well, no, it doesn't work that way, unless your tax situation is very simplistic. There can be plenty of federal credits that have no analogs in the state tax code, so in order not to underpay on the state taxes you're forced to overpay on federal tax. Or you must pay estimated state taxes quarterly, and that's extra hassle.

I hope you're not serious, that's all. I sincerely hope.

I've been fortunate enough never to be in such circumstances, but I have met people who, in order to save $25 would need to stay hungry for a week. Just for kickers, sign up for a minimum-wage job at Walmart, and see how many days you'll last without eating, doing full time or more, as many people are forced to in order to make ends meet. Yes, over a month or two saving up $25 is doable, but sometimes you don't have that much time, and the need to get paid now means you may squander those $25 on fees etc.

That's if you actually have a branch of that bank where it's convenient. Gas is not free, and sometimes a large multi-state employer may use a bank that doesn't have branches in your city, in your county, or even in your state.